FOUR weeks after The ICIR published a special report that exposed the travails of the retired Osun pensioners, the state government has on Friday paid a part of the owed arrears of some primary and secondary school retired teachers in the state.

According to information made available to The ICIR by the leadership of the pensioners union under Contributory Pension Scheme  (CPS), workers have started receving credit alerts on their respective mobile phones on Friday morning being a payment of the owed ‘half salary’ of a month out of 29-month backlogs.

The ICIR placed a call to all the zonal chairpersons of the union and confirmed the payment was made to the majority of their members without documentation issues.

However, checks by this paper showed that the retired public school primary and secondary school teachers under CPS in the state are owed 29 months ‘half salary’ arrears excluding a full month salary they received during the heat of Osun 2018 elections, December 2017.

Aside the monthly pension and gratuity, the pensioners are now being owed 28 months ‘half salary’ arrears.

As confirmed by The ICIR, pensioners who retired on level 9 step 8 were paid N32,450.56, Level 12 step 7 were paid N40,224.63, Level 13 step 10 got N40,224.63, Level 14 step 11 received N54,279.26 and Level 15 step 9 got N62,225.50.

Recall that The ICIR recently reported here the death of Pa Amiola Sunday, a 64-year-old retired headmaster who was owed several months in salaries and pension before he died.

According to one of the deceased’s children, Odunayo Amiola, who spoke to The ICIR on Thursday, said aside from chronic Glaucoma which rendered her father sightless, Pa Amiola was suffering from swollen testicles which he could not afford to treat until his death.

He was among the thousands of Osun civil servants affected by the modulated salary scheme introduced in 2015 by former governor Rauf Aregbesola.